While You Read Your Paper

While you read your paper
I am sitting here next to you
Your neighbor

Alavere, Alasan
A neighbor

But you sit
You're calm
How nice for you

I hear you've got a new job at the factory
That the pigs from Gojibee have set up
Down by Fiddler's River

Must be nice
Working for pigs

Certainly the only way
You'll ever be looked at
As being clean, my friend

My neighbor

No words

No words mean anything
Not anymore

A word is just something
Somebody gives you
To make you turn your back
So they can kick you in the rear

That is what happened to me
Your neighbor
Alavere, Alasan
What does it matter?
You don't remember
You can't be bothered to remember such things

Poor man
Poor neighbor of mine
Who reads the paper
And has no troubles

Who reads the paper
And pays his rent
And feeds his children
And buys his wife nice things
Because why not?

Because you've earned it
Haven't you?

You most certainly have

You come outside
Before heading to work
At the factory
Down by Fiddler's River
Run by pigs
Who pay you well
Thirty-three syta's a day
And an extra bucket of slop
At lunch time

Oh, you are a rich man
You are a lucky, rich man
How good for you

How very, very good

But even a rich man's house
Can get too noisy
Even a lucky man's house
Can seem a bit cramped

Luck is tricky
It takes up so much room

So you come outside and sit
And here I am
Your neighbor

Alavere, Alasan
Sitting sadly
Hunched over
Wondering what to do next

Worrying about a rent
That will not be paid

Children who will not be fed
A wife who cries every night
And lists the names of men
She should have married

Men who provide
Men like yourself

How strange it must feel
Sitting on the other side
Of an invisible line
That separates
Happiness from misfortune

How odd to be able to relax
And smoke
And survey the news
And all the while
Your neighbor sits beside you
Trying to think of a way out
Of all the problems
He finds himself in

And could you be the solution
To any of those problems, neighbor?

Who knows?

Who will ever know?

Not you

Not while you sit there
On the other side of the line
Reading your paper
Looking at all the people
In the paper
Walking by
Sitting beside you

All the people
Who aren't as lucky
As you